The "Association Colours in Cocpkit" (ACC) was founded at the airport "Duesseldorf International" in January 2003 and has been registered at the district court of Essen. It is our dedicated aim to shed light on the German and European aviation colour vision standards in comparison with international colour vison standards. The associations work is based on the papers and articles from the colour vision defective Australian flight surgeon, pilot and former AOPA-Australia Vice-President Dr. Arthur Pape.
Fifteen years ago Dr. Pape has shown in an australian court room, that a colour vison defect poses no threat to the safety of air naviagtion. Two major court appeals brought a decisive turn in Australia. It has been approved by the australian court, that the aviation colour perception standard was based on unscientific and flawed studies. Since that day colour vision defectives in Australia are able to gain every licence possible, starting with the Privat-Pilot-Licence (PPL) up to the Airline-Transport-Pilot-Licence (ATPL).
Uninfluenced by the Australian decisions the United States "Federal Aviation Authority" (FAA) came to the same conclusions and evaluated the actual need for a pilot to have normal colour vision quite different and more realistic, than European and German authorities still do today. Those countries, Australia and the United States of America, came to the conclusion, that the "informations conveyed by the use of colour in a cockpit" are redundant and unsystematic.
Every (caution-)light in a cockpit has a certain position, stands in close relation to other displays and instruments that often give the same information to the pilot, and every (caution-)light is labelled. In such a system colour is irrelevant. Because the pilot can read the label of every (caution-)light, he knows through practice and experience the position of every (caution-)light and what is signalized by it, when it illuminates. Furthermore, the pilot is supported by computer-voice and audio signals.
Flying an aircraft does not mean for a pilot that he reacts permanently and automatically to the instructions given by "coloured lights" he perceives. He has to act while using his mind to control a complex system and make an appropiate decision.
In the 17th century the German philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716) stated, that one should separate between "Perception" and "Apperception" (latin: "added to perception", "concious percpetion"). That means, a human, in comparison to an animal, does not react to a certain stimulus with a (predictable) certain reaction (see "stimulus-reaction-models" in Biology). The human response to any stimulus or any perception does always involve the use of his mind: He thinks, analyses and then reacts. (Certainly there are also human physiological reflexes, that can not be controlled or influenced by the human mind. But those reflexes are of no interest for the decission making process here.)
Michel C. Caplain, the translator of Dr. Arthur Papes webpages into french, once brought the problem to a singular point. He wrote in an email to me:
"I learned to fly during the prehistory of aviation (1967) when ground control was performed by hand waving red and green wood panels. Of course I could not tell the colors, but the hand waving was explicit enough to be unequivocal as to the controller's purpose. In fact, when he mistakenly swapped the panels I was the only one to understand his intentions! [...]
A few years ago, strolling through the Palo Alto airport I was training to recognise airplanes wingtip nav lights and suddenly realized that one of them had inverted its red and green lights! Not only it took a color blind fellow to notice the error, but in flight at night only a color blind pilot would have properly identified the collision risk, since we use other clues!"
Colour vision defective scientist and privat pilot
Flying an aircraft does not mean to permanently pass a colour vision test. In former times coloured panels gave the pilot clearance to roll or to stop; but the colour of the panels was irrelevant, because the gesture of the person who operated the panels was enough for the pilot to decide whether to roll or to stop or perform any other command.
The coloured wingtip "anti-collision-lights" are installed to avoid collisions; a possible collison risk can not be "colour coded". Jetairliners fly through the air with an approximate speed of 900 km/h. Fog, clouds and direct sunlight can make other aircrafts invisble for a pilot, and there already exist systems like the "TCAS" which warns the pilot of an aircraft by display and computer-voice commands before a possible collison - again a system which uses vision and audio.
The discovery of the electromagnetic waves by Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century should not be forgotten. That discovery paced the way for the development of radio-communication. Radio-communication used in aviation today makes the use of coloured light signals unnecessary. Aircraft do no longer get their take off clearences by a permanent green light from the control tower, but by radio-communication. This form of the use of colour and this type of colour-coding is no longer present in the current aviation enviroment.
The onboard systems of an aircraft are often on board twice - including the radio-communication devices -, and employ analogue and digital display forms which often convey the same information. The role of colour is irrelevant here. A colour vision defect influences the aircrafts safety in no way.
Dr. Arthur Pape has shown this in court and it was recognized by the court. A person with a colour vision defect is able to fly and pilot an aircraft safely, as can be seen every day in Australia, the United States and even worldwide. Because colour vision defective pilots fly their aircraft every day into German and European airspace and should pose a threat to the safety of air traffic, like their German and European colour vision defective counterparts should, who are not allowed to fly because of that reason.
A person with a colour vision defect possesses the same mental ability and motoric skill like a person with normal colour vision.
The community of European civil aviation authorities, the "Joint Aviation Authorities" (JAA), and especially the German aviation authority, the "Luftfahrtbundesamt", are promoting the strictest aviation colour perception standards worldwide. Therefore it is impossible for a colour vision defective individual in Europe and Germany to gain a commercial licence or even get employed as an airline pilot. If such applicants get any licence, then only with strict regulations (such as "VFR, (Visual Flight Rules) by day only").
The European and German authorities argument in order to support their policy is the same argument which was rejected by the Australian court. European and German authorities still say, that a colour vision defective person needs longer to interpret and understand redundantly coloured displays and aircraft instruments. Furthermore those individuals can loose control more easily in stressful situations and can not see the colours on flight charts and the colours used at airport facilities.
The main idea of every scientific approach to a problem dealing with any kind of reception and perception can be transfered on the reception of displays, aircraft instruments and (caution-)lights: One can not determine the kind of a persons reception from the recepted media itself.
An example: The scientific research focusing on reading and comprehension, has been based for a long time on the following paradigma. A novel is always read by a person to be entertained, and a scientific text is read to get information. This paradigma is flawed and it has been scientificly refuted. Novels (or any fictional text) are also read to get information and scientific texts (or any non-fictional text) are read to be entertained, too.
"It is, therefore, quite impossible to say from a text alone how people will respond to it." |
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Norman N. Holland (1975)
5 Readers Reading. London. |
That means for the colours used in air traffic and a cockpit: Just because displays and (caution-)lights in a cockpit are designed coloured does not mean, that they are perceived as primarily coloured, but as a display that shows data, a certain value, a word, a symbol, a sign etc. The colourfull design is redundant and superfluous. It just serves one purpose, as Dr. Arthur Pape would say:
"[...] to make it more pleasing to the eye, a benefit that applies to all grades of defective colour vision as well as to the colour normal [individual; NK]." |
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Dr. Arthur Pape (Australia)
Colour vision defective flight surgeon and commercial pilot |
Or like Holland would say: "It is, therefore, quite impossible to say from a 'colour coded cockpit' alone how the pilot will respond to it."
It is the ACC's dedicated aim to shed light on the aviation colour percpetion standard and to promote the idea of "Freedom to Fly Responsibly" from AOPA-Australia, which has supported the re-evaluation of the Australian aviation colour perception regulations in the past.
The ACC was founded by colour vision defectives and is in close contact to Dr. Arthur Pape. New members are allways welcome, new ideas, criticism, and help, too.
I welcome you on our internet pages
Nils Klute
President
Association Colours in Cockpit